#everyone: ok hi vyra

[vyragosa]

i said i won't be spitballing BUT☝

i got practical jokes and art to make.

#everyone: ok hi vyra #me sniffling: right oomfies i miss yall quite actually

[authoratmidnight]

89. Free Ryoken and Ai

89. Free

“You have all the freedom in the world now, and you use it to bother me.”

“Well you have all the freedom in the world and you don’t do anything with it.”

Ryoken stopped typing, hands hovering above the keyboard he was working at as he turned to look at Ai, who was seated on the screen of his duel disk, legs crossed.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, aside from the obvious, you never leaving this boat, you act like you’re the leader, but almost everything you do was decided by someone else.”

Ryoken frowned as he looked at the Ignis and Ai continued on. “You didn’t make the decision to hunt us down and exterminate us, Dr. Kogami did, you just went along with it. Same with the tower of Hanoi, that was all Dr. Kogami’s programming and creation.” He cocked his head to one side curiously, “And I don’t get it. Why not make your own choices, why go with what everyone else says to do?”

Ryoken turned away, looking back at his computer as he set his hands on the table. Ai was right and he hated it.

“I mean, if you have all the freedom in the world, why don’t you do what you want to do?” asked Ai.

“What I want to do huh?” A hoarse laugh caught in his throat and he shook his head, hands curling into clenched fists on the tabletop. “Because...because every time I make a choice, every time I try to do what I think is right the universe throws it back in my face. I invite my new friend over to my house, my father turns him into a lab experiment. I try to save six children from hell and how am I rewarded, by having the only family I have taken from me and returned to me at death’s door.” He pressed his hands to his face as his voice caught somewhere between a laugh and snort, hands shaking. “Hell, the choice to form an alliance with Yusaku and his friends was mine, and look what happened, I nearly got all of us killed, including myself. So maybe, maybe the reason I don’t want to make the decisions, is because the universe just wants to throw it back in my face.”

There was a crashing sound as he brought his hands down on the table and Ai jumped in surprise. Aside from that one moment in the virtual flower field, he’d never really seen Ryoken be what one might be considered vulnerable. Maybe constantly prodding for answers hadn’t been the best idea after all.

“I’m not allowed to make a choice without it hurting someone.”

Silence settled over them as Ryoken buried his face in his hands and Ai shifted awkwardly on the duel disk.

“You’re not the only one who's made mistakes like that you know,” he said after a moment. “I chose to leave the Cyberse World in Lightning’s care so I could find Yusaku, and while I was gone he imprisoned Aqua, rewrote Windy’s code and destroyed our home. I’d say that’s a pretty big slap in the face from the universe. I leave home to save it and it gets destroyed anyways.” Ai rubbed his head, “Not one of my finer choices.”

Ryoken lowered his hands slightly as Ai spoke, looking down at the small Ignis. “Where are you going with this?”

“Everyone makes a few bad decisions in their life, but that doesn’t mean you just stop. After all, not every decision you made was bad.”

“And what pray tell, went right?”

“Specter, you made the choice to befriend him didn’t you? And Vyra, if you hadn’t broken her out of prison she wouldn’t have been able to help save Link VRAINS from Lightning and Bowman,” said Ai. “And even teaming up with us wasn’t all bad. Ok, yes there were a few hitches along the way-”

“A few?”

“Shhh. There were a few hitches but, everything worked out, we stopped Bowman and Lightning, and you even helped repair Earth and Windy’s codes after, you can’t say that went badly.”

“I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop on those choices,” said Ryoken.

“Well you’ll be waiting a long time for them, cause they’re not gonna go wrong,” said Ai, planting his hands on his hips. “So use that free will you humans are so proud of to-to do something! To do what you want to do!”

“What I want to do huh?” Ryoken looked back at the laptop screen with a thoughtful ‘hmmm’ as he rested his chin on his hands.

“What’re you working on anyways?” asked Ai, craning his neck to look at the laptop screen.

“Nothing important,” replied Ryoken, quickly closing the program before Ai could see what he’d been doing. “Do you know where Yusaku is?”

“Hmmmm, I think he was going to see Kusanagi-san. Why?”

Ryoken didn’t reply and simply stood up, shutting the laptop. “Thank you, Ai.”

“Huh, you’re thanking me, why?”

He just smiled and gave Ai a tap on the head before heading for the door.

“Hey, hey answer me! What am I being thanked for, and why did you want to know where Yusaku was? Wait...does he have something to do with what you want to do?”

“Goodbye Ai.”

#vrains #bb fics #there's some implied datastorm at the end #I think the prompt got a bit off the rails but oops #talks about free will happened #Anonymous

[entermates]

sighs ok ill answer this under the cut and separately but for future reference please use “vr” or “vr///ains” for ask memes so my shit doesn’t pop up in the tags. ty

haven’t heard of it | absolutely never watching | might watch | currently watching | dropped | hated it | meh | a positive okay | liked it | liked it a lot! | loved it | a favorite

don’t watch period | drop if not interested within 2-3 episodes | give it a go, could be your thing | 5 star recommendation

fav characters: ema i guess but that’ll probably change once yoshida gives ema the vr tm annoying edgy backstory (and i also can’t stand anyone else)

least fav characters: yusaku, go, ryoken, light, windy, earth, bohman, spectre, blood shepard, god i hate literally everyone in this show

fav relationship: yusaku & homura’s friendship is ok ig

fav moment: ryoken’s dad dying because he fucking deserved that shit don’t tell me he didn’t don’t TELL me that man DESERVED ANY FORM OF REDEMPTION

headcanons/theories: miyu aint the lost girl she’s just there to fuel the “aoi struggles to make friends” storyline. probably gonna be some girl aoi was friends with and somehow aoi struggled to maintain the friendship im calling this shit rn

unpopular opinion(s): i. i have so many literally any opinion i have on this show is unpopular but here we go:

data////storm is bad and it romanticizes mental illness and nearly all the fan content does this too. please stop. please fucking stop romanticizing possession, ptsd, and any other mental illness with these two it isn’t healthy, it’s gross, and it’s really shitty. (note: not all. nearly all from my experience) below is a tweet from my boyfriend that summarizes up my point pretty well

ryoken ain’t deep he’s 2d as fuck and horribly written and also he’s ugly as shit irl

aoi’s written horribly too she hasn’t developed at all and if she’s really the lost girl then her bad writing shows. it shows they shoehorned this shit in at the last minute when there were plenty of other opportunities to foreshadow it. (if u say that 1 frame from ep 19 ill scream bc that’s not foreshadowing at all)

ptsd and other mental illnesses are handled horribly in this show. vr is NOT a positive example of ptsd and other mental illnesses at all so please stop looking up to it as something it clearly isn’t

akira’s the only consistent character in vr. literally no one else is consistent in their motivations or goals (maybe homura but i honestly stopped watching at some point)

you don’t need to give every single character an edgy backstory. it’s not heartbreaking, it’s not emotional, and it’s not good representation. it’s annoying and honest to god it’s a fucking joke at this point. vr is literally a shitting contest to see who has the edgiest backstory. from what i’ve heard go’s entire character motivation is to beat playmaker  and get the power playmaker has and akira was just “yeah its his fuckin trauma lol” and go was just “gimme that” (i only saw screenshots but you get the point)

there is no reason for every single character in this show to have some sort of angsty backstory. it should be limited to the six kids and their relatives (like kusanagi or akira if aoi’s the lost child). blood shepard doesn’t need an angsty backstory. go doesn’t need one. ema doesn’t need one. haru and bohman don’t need one. RYOKEN DOESN’T FUCKING NEED ONE it’s also shit anyways

none of these characters are even real characters??? they’re just models drawn on a sheet and they’re given voices to participate in whatever duel of the week they need to. go’s the worst victim of this but it carries over to literally anyone with a duel disk. this is why we get our “main girl” vanishing for like 20 fucking episodes without a word.

the ignis are the only interesting concept in this show and yet the show REFUSES to do anything with them. the cyberse world is boring, the war between the ignis is boring because there’s no motivation outside of “welp i guess i hate humans.” why didn’t the ignis create their own sub species or kids or their own society? it gives em something to fight for and some motivation outside of hating humans for the sake of hating humans.

this show doesn’t know how to use it’s budget. most of the experienced vas are voicing characters that barely appear (vyra, aqua, etc)

how’d you find it: i like ygo so. i just heard about it.

random thoughts: stop saying it’s the darkest ygo when it isn’t, stop bashing arc v in ur vr positvity posts im sick and fucking tired of it.

i’m also sick and tired of every flaw in this show being excused because it’s literally a pandering shit show (no ryoken and yusaku aren’t good representation they’e fucking bait) yet arc v isn’t allowed a single fucking slip up. i’m so fucking tired.

#asks #vr #bless the vr///ains down in africa #(changed my tag so things dont show in the vr tag)

[akiharashizuka]

Yu-Gi-Oh Vrains episode 24 thoughts

Dark Mask's Burden of Fate

Well, Gō barely escaped in the last episode, but Genome wasn’t done just yet. Which leads to Gō surviving with 100 LP. Ok, this happens a lot in Yu-Gi-Oh. The last 100 LP is where the character truly shines. What’s interesting about this part though, is that Genome had sort of a back-up plan. Most of the time the antagonist launches one big attack, but the good character survives, then it’s turn end. However, when the antagonist still have more stuff to do, it becomes more entertaining. 

Playmaker coming out of the black tornado-thing wasn’t exactly the entrance I was expecting. But it works, so no complains.

Who would have thought that Ai will grow to like his name? xD He even woofs when Genome comments that he had been tamed xD

Back to Playmaker though. I’m surprised he deliberately act like a jerk in order to motivate Gō. And it worked. The moment he got angry, I thought that maybe he will get too hotheaded and mess up. Luckily, this wasn’t the case.

Before moving on to that, Playmaker telling Genome about human potential sums up what I said in the last review about people going beyond what they’ve been born with. 

Also, Genome confirms that Ai has free will. That isn’t really news, but in-universe no one really knows that. Yūsaku and Kusanagi  have been speculating that, but it’s not like they were completely certain about it.

Who would have thought that Gō’s  path to winning will open up by shedding the mask. Like I’ve previously mentioned, I don’t know much about wrestling, so I didn’t know that the terms “heel” and “face turn” are used in wrestling, until I looked it up. I only knew about the tropes xD

Anyway, what Gō did here, going from good guy, to villain and then, back to good guy is something we see in fiction quite a lot. You know, a character who may be the protagonist’s rival, or just an aloof ally ends up joining the antagonists for a reason, or another, but towards the end of the arc, or even the story itself, that character returns to the good side. Again, for a reason or another. Usually, what makes this interesting for me are those reasons. What exactly drives the character to do that and how this impacts the other characters, as well as the story.

So, I’m guessing Gō tries to convey all this stuff into his dueling style. Again, I don’t know much about wrestling, so I’m trying to associate it with something I’m more familiar with. Maybe wrestling took inspiration from fiction as well. 

Actually, good guy to heel (villain) to good guy again is evolving. if you take the fiction example from earlier, that character goes through character development while changing sides. Which contributes to the general enjoyment of the story.

Gō sure is more observant than meets the eye. He didn’t take long to realize Playmaker was pretending to make fun of him. It sure makes me believe that he really did figure out he is Yūsaku. I wish we got an answer to that...

Oh well, there are more important things at the moment. Like the Knights of Hanoi. It’s kind of ironic. When Gō was introduced, Yūsaku said that he doesn’t intend to involve anyone in his battle against them. But it looks like Gō wants to join out of his own will and for his own reasons.

 I’m surprised he realized that Blue Angel was around. But the scene kinda gets left in the air for a few minutes.

The 2nd half focuses on Aoi, which most likely will connect to the events in the next episode. 

Who knew Shima had that much of a sense of justice though. If I remember correctly, he never went to Link Vrains, but now he suddenly wants to go just to stop Hanoi. Well, since he’s asking the whole club to join him, I don’t think he has the confidence to go alone. But, who knows, he might go sooner or later. guess it will be interesting to see him in Link Vrains.

Anyway, good thing the president is being smart and talks him out of it. Justice or not, it’s still dangerous and it’s not like they are professionals. 

Well, it looks like other people got a sudden sense of justice as well. It was funny seeing this guy actually log in, then get scared when the Knight appeared, then manage to return thanks to Playmaker stepping in xD If Shima actually attempts to go there, I hope it doesn’t end up like that. Or worse, becoming an Another.

Anyway, it’s interesting to see how Playmaker and Gō influence these teenagers. They don’t even do it on purpose, but they are considered heroes, and, of course, everyone wants to do what heroes do. Well, there are some exceptions, like the club president. I can’t call them cowards, since they are actually being realistic. Plus, if they don’t have the necessary skills, they will end up getting in the way.

The way he walked out of the club room was weird xD And kind of suspicious.

Ok, so the Knights of Hanoi are not above disposing of one of their members when info is about to get leaked. 

We also get the conclusion from the earlier scene. So, Blue Angel just silently walked away. Remember that in the past she admitted being at a loss about what to do, following the incident with her breaking down? Guess this is a follow-up to that because we never got whether she found an answer or not.

Hmm, Playmaker brings up some interesting stuff. The program being updated daily proves that Hanoi aren’t only competent, but also careful.

That robot just roasted Akira xD

It looks like a peaceful family dinner, yet something clearly is bothering Aoi. I doubt it’s about Akira, since that problem has been solved. I mean, we saw her attend school normally, which means he doesn’t keep her confined anymore. She also logged in as Blue Angel, so I he might allow her to duel. That, or she did it behind his back (with the Another incident, he clearly doesn’t allow her to use Link Vrains) Either way, they do have a better understanding of each other now. 

I’m guessing, the root of the problem is Aoi just not knowing what to do.

Really...Kitamura completed the AI duelists...And he wants to send them to duel the Knights of Hanoi. I hope, at least, these are upgraded versions of the ones which attacked Playmaker. 

Everyone is watching them like some kind of show. Interesting that they bring up Okehazama and Sekigahara, which are famous battles in Japan’s history. Well, history was never my best subject and I’m not very familiar with Okehazama, but Sekigahara was mentioned quite a lot in anime and I’ve seen it depicted in historical anime. Or should I say, re-imagines since that anime wasn’t meant to be completely historically-accurate. Anyway, Japan wasn’t always a unified country. At some point, it was divided in many regions, each one with a leader. Of course, there were conflicts between these leaders (daimyōs), so wars happened. This period is called the Sengoku Era, or the Warring States Era. It’s quite a popular period and it’s often brought up in anime. Not to mention that many of the daimyōs are quite well-known as well, such as Osa Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Date Masamune, Takeda Shingen, Uesugi Kenshin, Tokugawa Ieyasu and so on and so forth. The battle of Sekigahara is somewhat the end of the Sengoku era, since it’s what lead to Tokugawa becoming shogun, thus unifying Japan. 

And, while everyone is excited about the spectacle, our protagonist makes use of the battle to find the mastermind xD

At least they showed results, for a while. Until the big shots showed up.

I’m not even surprised. AIs are quite impressive in-universe, but they are limited. In this episode even, Gō’s duel disk AI couldn’t find a way out, but Gō himself managed to pull through. It’s the same thing with these AI duelists. They could defeat the casual members, but not the higher-ups. And they are higher-ups for a reason.

It’s funny how Kitamura only things about getting promoted xD Guess even if he becomes an Another, he will strive for that. 

I don’t know either what Akira can do in this situation, but oh well.

Back to Aoi though, here is more evident that she just doesn’t know what to do. Part of her wants to join the battle, but she also wants to listen to her brother. And that’s because she now understands him better. The flashback of him saying that his spirit would break if Aoi was kidnapped was played in this episode to emphasize that. She doesn’t want to make him worry and cause him grief. Especially now that she knows how much he cares. 

It would be interesting to see how she chooses to solve this problem in the next episode. Also, Vyra duels. 

#yugioh vrains #vrains #vrains spoilers #Akihara's random opinion thing